THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
DAVID FERGUSON RUGBY CORRESPONDENT

PLANS to re-draw Scottish rugby's season to enliven rugby clubs are gathering support ahead of tonight's SRU annual general meeting, but remain unlikely to alter the drop to a ten-team Division 1 next season.

The proposal by Stirling County for new 12-team or 14-team leagues will dominate the agenda at Murrayfield, particularly with the SRU's controversial financial problems so serious - another loss of close to £3 million is expected to take the deficit to £26 million - that they have been shunted to a special finance meeting in August, by which time the union will or will not have "sold" a pro team to a private investor.
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Stirling's motion, seconded by Ayr, Stewart's-Melville FP and Dundee HSFP, has also won approval from leading figures in the SRU, but The Scotsman understands that their own amendment to introduce the changes this summer is expected to be defeated.

The provision that all changes be made only after a 12-month period was one of the few sacrosanct rules of league reconstruction, but it was set aside during last year's great upheaval in an effort to speed the move out of the black abyss the Murrayfield leadership coup had steered the game towards. The fact that Stirling would avoid relegation from Division 1, were the switch to 14-team leagues also agreed, also weighs heavily against their motion being accepted.

Keith Wallace of Haddington RFC, the outgoing Division 2 representative on the Scottish Rugby Council, admitted he favoured a 12-team league over a 14, but added: "The championship rule requiring a season's notice before any change to the league structure is there for a reason. It is important that clubs know what they are playing for at the start of each season and it strikes me as being wrong to change the goalposts after the event."

Readers could be forgiven for believing we have been here before; since the advent of professionalism there has been a desire on the part of rugby clubs the length and breadth of Scotland to reorganise their leagues. Only last year league reconstruction dominated the agenda, with a new structure seemingly agreed for the next four years.

The agreement then was for a ten-team Premier League, which it was stated would help improve standards at the elite level and shorten the club season to help release age-group internationals for world championships in the second half of the season. But, now, Frank Hadden, the national coach, and the age-grade coaches believe clubs should forget about bridging the gap between club and professional teams and concentrate on reinvigorating a struggling club scene. Instead, they have won board support for an academy system to hot-house elite players for professional rugby, albeit with most still playing club rugby at weekends, which has precipitated the move by Stirling to return to a longer club season.

County have proposed two choices: six leagues of 12 teams followed by regional leagues, one up-one down and play-offs to decide promotion and relegation, or a switch to five 14-team divisions above regional leagues, with two up-two down promotion-relegation.

With Glasgow Hawks and Heriot's withdrawing their motion to force pro teams to release players to clubs, only two further motions remain. The third, proposed by Cambuslang, is to reduce the pressure on clubs outside the top 22 to name five substitutes, with the fourth, proposed by the Scottish Rugby Board, being a request for the championship committee to rethink the cup competition to cut travel costs for small clubs and the number of mismatched ties.

Stirling have submitted another amendment, proposing a more radical change to make the cup only for Premiership teams and the shield for national league sides, with the bowl only for regional league clubs.

This article was posted on 30-Jun-2006, 07:11 by Hugh Barrow.